Tilly Dillehay - Seeing Green: Dont Let Envy Color Your Joy

A woman flashed me in my own office once.

It was during a scheduled interview on a Saturday. The newspaper where I worked at the time always did a special ad section for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we always interviewed a survivor.

This time the subject was a woman in her 70s whom Id never met. She told me an incredible story about how her cancer was found, eliminated, found again, cut out (with every penny of the $77,000 bill covered by insurance she signed up for two hours before the surgery), and probably (but not necessarily) gone for good.

Her hair was dyed an implausible red, her manner brisk and matter-of-fact. She told me her story with the delighted attitude of any raconteur who has discovered a story in her own life that people like to hear.

Wanna see? she said then.

No, thank you, I would have said, except there was no time.

She lifted her shirt up, no bra, and showed me those scars, along with everything else.

Ive always been a little squeamish about random acts of nudity and anything that even suggests itself as a wound. But it seemed rude to run screaming from my own office. So as she flashed me her scars and skin, I just nodded politely and hmmed .

I bring up this story because it reminds me of the way some of the stories in this book might come across. It can be a bit like the survivor-gone-wild display in my office that day: probably too much information, ugly and personal, shared with total strangers.

And when I sit down to thank the people who made it possible for this book to move forward, I think first of the handful who gave me permission to use stories in which I envy them. The stories are only unflattering to one person (me), but they still involve others who were each so very gracious that they didnt hesitate for a second about having the stories shared. So I have to thank my sisters (Sophie, Callie, and Phoebe were all referenced) and then a few unnamed friends whose identities are protected by name changes. You know who you are.

I also have to thank my husband, who did much more than your average supportive reading in the development of this book. Heres what happened. When I began it, he agreed to help me by cowriting it and being the theologically precise voice to my narrative one. When it became clear that this structure for the project wasnt working, he gave me his full blessing to run forward into the material, but not before I had fistfuls of passages in hand that were his own writing, not mine. They were integrated into the final version so seamlessly that I can no longer tell where his voice ends and mine begins (a little bit like marriage itself). This attitude of freehanded humility is characteristic of Justin Dillehay. I love you, darling.

I have to thank my father, who was the first person to tell me I should write, andperhaps more importantlythe person who sat me on his lap and taught me to read. His is still the stamp of approval that I require to know something is good. And I am thankful to my mother, who always shares these things on Facebook and who is no literary schlump herself.

Thank you to my agent, Bruce Barbour, without whom I would still be a dreaming unpublished author.

Thank you to the team at Harvest House, who have made it clear that they are a hardworking family band. Especially my editor, Kathleen Kerr, whose sharp eye and rampant enthusiasm has made me feel like her favorite compliment, a rock star.

Other assorted people supported the book by reading some or all and offering feedback, some long before it was published: Rachael Holliday, Chris and Tiffany Davis, Maria Hollingsworth, Ashley Busby, Ivan Mesa, Caroline Newheiser, and a group of women at Grace Baptist Hartsville who did a book study on this book and encouraged me when I needed a little pushmost especially Jane Martin, head cheerleader; Julie Clement, who talked a lot (in a good way); and Juanita Pinzur, who helped me to see that I use too many commas.

Thank you all!

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now (Philippians 1:3-5).

Tilly Dillehay holds a degree in journalism from Lipscomb University. In the past, she has been the editor of a weekly newspaper and of a lifestyle magazine, and she now serves as homemaker and mother to two little girls. She writes at www.justinandtilly.com and contributes occasionally to The Gospel Coalition. She is the host of The Green Workshop , an event for women on the subject of envy that is held in local churches. Tillys husband, Justin, is a pastor in the small town east of Nashville where the family resides.

T he Lord is so gracious to me.

There are some things in your heart that almost undo you when you find out about them. When I was first convicted of envy, it had been a staple of my existence for at least 20 years. The process of beginning this book came directly out of the first round of repentance and reconciliation. Then there were a few years when I set the project aside. I needed to feel my way forward to see what would become of the damaged relationships in real life.

Can a Christian bounce back from this kind of sin? I wondered. Can these relationships ever be the same?

All I can sayagainis that the Lord is gracious beyond measure to me. Conviction of sin is a sweet gift that belongs to the children of God; its a luxury that the lost dont know. Repentance is another luxury. True and lasting reconciliation is another.

The desire to know and love my sisters came first. The means to do so came next. The willingness on their end was there all along. If you had told me seven years ago that I was going to develop a reflexive reaction of joy when I heard about good things happening to my sistersall four of them, in factI would have looked at the ground in shame and disbelief. But this is the truth. They are my friends.

Toward other friends I must use a touchstone on my heart continually to see what its full of.

Just in the last few weeksright in the middle of polishing this manuscriptI had to confess another instance of rooted envy toward a newer friend. Its been years since I had to do this. Because it was a new glory that I hadnt envied before, it took longer for me to repent than it should have. She instantly and graciously forgave.

Then she told me that she was currently struggling with envy toward another unnamed person, and we rejoiced together that our conversation had opened an opportunity for her to examine her heart and approach another friend. And this is how sweet the Lord is. He will sometimes even set up chain reactions of repentance and grace for us.

The words of Psalm 51 paint such an accurate picture of the painful and glorious process that God keeps putting my heart through:

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin!

Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have broken rejoice

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,

O God of my salvation,

and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.